Saturday, June 6, 2015

HAPPY ENDINGS TOUR: HAPPY ENDINGS & EPILOGUES, TOO! BY ANNA DEPALO

Visit us daily this week and learn
what some of our members think about the much sought after and often elusive “Happy
Ever After.”

Not only do I
believe and happy endings but I believe in happy endings plus. In other
words, The Epilogue. I have even put an epilogue at the end of a short
story!

An epilogue can
serve several functions. First, an epilogue can tie up loose ends in the story.
For example, if the story ends with the heroine resolving to get to know her
long-lost father, the epilogue can show the relationship develop. Or the
epilogue might show that two secondary characters get their happy ending as
well.

Second, even if
there are no loose ends in the story, an epilogue can tie up the plot with a
nice bow. Readers like to know what happens to the protagonists in the future.
This is the place to show the wedding or the arrival of the baby. There’s a
risk of being anticlimactic after the last chapter, but I think that danger is
outweighed by the benefits. The epilogue gives the reader the assurance that
the main characters are not only happy, but they stay happy.

Third, an
epilogue can introduce the characters of the next book or set up its premise.
Arguably, an epilogue has become more important due to the popularity of series
of connected books. So much for Margaret Mitchell famously saying: "For
all I know, Rhett may have found someone else who was less—difficult."
Actually, that wasn’t a popular pronouncement even back in 1945!

I am not a fan
of prologues, by the way, which are a completely different animal. Prologues
can exacerbate the problem of not starting at the beginning of the story—that
is, near the moment of change.

An epilogue can
sometimes effectively break the rules governing other chapters. It might use a
new and different narrator, be written in a different point of view (omniscient
or first person), or be relayed in a new tense (present instead of past, for
example). The possibilities abound—another reason the epilogue need not be
anticlimactic.

So go
head…write that coda to your happy ending! Your readers are waiting.♥

ABOUT THE
AUTHOR: Anna DePalo is the USA Today best-selling
author of a dozen romance novels. She was raised bilingual in Brooklyn,
attended Harvard, and practiced intellectual property law. She is a past Vice
President, Assistant Treasurer, Contest Coordinator, and Bylaws Committee
member of RWA/NYC. She lives with her husband, son and daughter in New York.
You can find Anna online at www.annadepalo.com,
www.facebook.com/anna.depaloauthor, www.facebook.com/AnnaDePaloBooks and
twitter.com/Anna_DePalo.